TV stations need to spend millions each, in the next 5 years.........
amcity.com
June 29, 1998
Digital TV to cost millions
New technology prompts public stations to develop new image
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Julie Bollinger News Staff Reporter
Greater Dayton Public Television knows by 2003 it will be stuck with a $6.2 million bill.
What it doesn't know is how it's going to pay it.
In the next six years, the broadcaster will have to spend millions to convert WPTD-TV Channel 16 and WPTO-TV Channel 14 to digital television -- probably one of the government's most expensive television industry mandates. But the government still hasn't told the stations how much money, if any, it will contribute to the conversion.
Meantime, the stations are using money they do have to start updating to digital technology, hoping that when they have to buy bigger-ticket items, like towers and antennas, the money will be there. In the past two years months, the stations have replaced their master control area and major electronics to enable programs to be edited and stored in digital fashion.
Unlike analog -- which sends pictures over airwaves -- digital technology breaks down images and sounds into computer language, transmits the data and then puts it back together on the other end.
Digital gives broadcasters two options: Multicasting -- the transmission of several channels over one signal -- and high-definition television (HDTV), one channel with a sharper, more defined image and compact disc sound quality.
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